


Bound to Loneliness

by Cornerofmadness



Series: The Ties that Bind [3]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boarding School, Body Dysphoria, Gen, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Referenced Bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27538450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: Malcolm has learned to hate boarding school, and his own trauma, but one day everything changes.
Series: The Ties that Bind [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002873
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Bound to Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** Not mine, Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver owns it
> 
> **Notes:** Written for cozy_coffee in comment_fic for the prompt any, any, Edge of Winter and for the allbingo prompt of sleep. This is set in my Ties that Bind alternate timeline Prodigal Son series where Martin did in fact attempt to kill Malcolm in the woods. They are all stand alone stories, however, and the first is quite dark (mind the tags) but you don’t need to read that one to read this.

Malcolm rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept in days, or at least not without screaming a lot. As he knotted his tie, he looked out his dorm room window. The sky matched his mood, an unrelenting gray as the season butted up to the edge of winter. He checked himself in the mirror. He was perfectly turned out – as if his mother would ever have allowed for anything less – but he wished his school allowed for longer hair. He was thirteen, and as far as he was concerned, he should be allowed to wear his hair however he wanted.

Tracing the faint white line across his voice box, he wished the tie would cover it all. If he had his hair longer, he could hide the scar on the side of his neck completely. Collared shirts and ties only went so far. Gil promised him that the scars weren’t that noticeable but to Malcolm they were as vivid as the day he left the hospital. 

His hand began to shake as he remembered lying in the woods, John Watkins’s blood all over his hands and his father looming over him, carefully operating on his neck, making him victim number twenty-five, having killed the twenty-fourth earlier than evening. Only pure luck had been on his side. Someone had seen him running screaming in the woods after he stabbed Watkins to save himself and had seen his father tearing after him. Malcolm hadn’t seen those campers and neither had his father. The police had taken him by surprise. _Gil_ had saved Malcolm’s life but no one could spare him the scarring.

He turned away from the mirror. Malcolm hated looking into them for any length of time. They reflected the ugliness of him just as his dreams showcased his inner ugly. Dr. Le Deux told him that there was nothing wrong with him, that his dreams were a manifestation of his trauma. He wanted to believe her. All he wanted was some sleep…and some friends.

Once he walked out his dorm room door, he’d be faced with his classmates. They all hated him; Malcolm didn’t need anyone to tell him that. He could see it in their eyes but in all fairness, they didn’t hide how much they disliked him. They called him Scary Scars, Daddy’s Little Killer, Psycho just to name a few. Malcolm tried to tell his mother he didn’t want to be in this stupid boarding school but she didn’t listen. She said he needed to be in the best school if he wanted to make his dreams come true.

He knew she meant well. She knew he wanted to go to Harvard some day but what his real dreams were at this moment, was to be somewhere people didn’t hate him for being The Surgeon’s son. He thought maybe if they had gone to the west coast or maybe to London he could have hidden who he was. Mother was never going to leave the family home and if they had left, he’d have lost Gil. He had put away his hopes Gil would marry his mother, knowing now that wouldn’t happen. His mother must not have liked Gil in that way but Malcolm had hoped for more than a year for it anyhow. Gil had married just a few months ago Jackie and Malcolm adored her.

Sighing, Malcolm fetched the laptop he used to help communicate with others since _no one_ at this school had any interest in learning sign language for him except for Mr. Lloyd-Jones who taught biology. Everyone else figured he could hear well enough so they didn’t need to make any special efforts for him. He was so lonely. He was surrounded by boys and yet utterly alone.

“It will be a good day,” he said in his harsh whisper, the mantra Dr. Le Deux wanted him to use to try and set the mood for the day. It never worked but he never gave up hope either.

XXX

Vijay hated every part of this. His mother had pulled him out of his school, mid-semester and sent him _here_ in the hopes no one would know his father had been sent to prison for being one of the biggest drug kingpins in the city. But everyone knew the Chandasara saga. It had been on the news everywhere. He’d only been here less than a day and these kids knew who he was and what his father was. They had collectively turned their back on him. He’d gone from being one of the most popular kids in his old school to the boy no one wanted to talk to, not his old friends nor any of the new boys here.

Standing in the cafeteria with a tray of food he didn’t feel up to eating, Vijay surveyed the tables. All he found were hostile looks, a few eyerolls when they caught him looking their way and even a couple middle fingers that the cafeteria workers didn’t notice or just didn’t care about. Then he spotted a kid, a little smaller than average, sitting by himself in the back corner table. Vijay scowled. Literally no one else was by themselves. What was this kid’s deal?

Another boy sidled up to Vijay, his head down. He’d seen the kid in history but couldn’t remember his name. He knew the look though. He was a boy just barely clinging onto the popular kid clique, who knew talking to someone like Vijay would further damage his rep. “That’s Whitly. Avoid him if you know what’s good for you.”

Vijay cocked up an eyebrow. “Why?”

“You think your dad’s bad? Yours is nothing like his. Heard your room is next to his at the end of the hall. You’ll probably hear him screaming in the night.” The kid snorted and shuffled off.

Vijay glanced around the cafeteria again, finding not one speck of friendship on offer. He knew how to read people, how to read a room. He wasn’t going to have any friends here so why pretend? He walked over to the corner table and sat down without asking. Whitly reared back, shocked.

Vijay stuck out his hand. “I’m Vijay Chandasara. I just transferred in.”

Whitly stared at his hand as if he didn’t know what the gesture meant and then finally shook hands. “Malcolm Whitly.”

Vijay blinked. He wasn’t expecting a raspy, faint voice out of the kid. He hoped Whitly didn’t notice, and he plowed ahead. “Nice to meet you, Malcolm. I just transferred here. Boy, does this place look like Hogwarts or what? It’s kinda spooky. Have you been here long? Do you like it?”

Whitly held up his hand and opened his ThinkPad. He typed swiftly, making Vijay’s mood nosedive. This kid cared so little about him he was going to do homework to avoid talking to him. He pressed enter and a mechanical voice echoed out of the ThinkPad. “It does look like Hogwarts, maybe spooky but that’s okay. Been here forever. I don’t like it. They don’t like me.”

Vijay widened his eyes. He hadn’t expected that. “Yeah, they told me to avoid you. That’s okay I don’t think they’ll like me either. They’re already talking about me. I might as well tell you because you’ll hear it anyhow. Dad went to prison. You probably heard about it on the news.”

Whitly nodded.

“You shy or something?” Vijay gestured to the laptop. “Or is something wrong with you? Is that why they don’t like you?”

A terribly sad expression crossed Whitly’s face but he typed anyhow. “My voice box was damaged. Hurts to talk too much. I sign. Do you know sign?”

“Sorry no. That’s okay. Use your computer. I don’t mind.” Vijay couldn’t imagine not being able to talk. His mother said he talked too much. “So, why should I avoid you?”

Whitly shrugged and typed. “My dad was arrested too.”

“Sucks. They’re so judgy.” Vijay cast a look over his shoulder. Sure, enough the whole cafeteria was watching them. Let them. Vijay had already decided they weren’t going to bother him. “I’m betting you have no idea what’s fun to do around here because I can tell that bunch doesn’t let you have any.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I say we make our own fun, Whitly. How’s that sound?”

Whitly’s answer was a huge smile.

XXX

Malcolm wrote Gil a letter, trying to put into words what his day was like. He had met the most interesting kid. Vijay had talked nonstop through lunch and sat at Malcolm’s lab table in biology, confiding in him that he wasn’t any good at science. Malcolm promised to help him because he loved science. 

Once he was back in his dorm room, he’d hooked his computer to the cable internet and looked up Vijay’s dad. He was a drug dealer but Malcolm didn’t care about that. He better than anyone knew you couldn’t judge a kid by the actions of his father. He had almost finished his letter to Gil when someone knocked at the door. Malcolm eyed it suspiciously. No one ever knocked on his door. This place could be burning down and he was sure no one would knock to warn him. On the other hand, if it were someone wanting to hurt him _again_ they probably wouldn’t knock on the door.

Slipping Gil’s letter into a desk drawer, he opened the door. Vijay stood there with a wide, goofy grin on his face. He wore silk pajamas that were a deep blue. Malcolm felt shabby in his own striped ones in comparison. Worse, the open neckline hid nothing of his scars. He backed away, putting a hand to his neck.

“Hi, can’t sleep. Want to talk?” Vijay bounced in before Malcolm could answer and he shut the door. He flopped down on the loveseat that was in the TV section of the dorm room. 

“Okay,” Malcolm said, still trying to shield his neck from sight. What could he possibly do about it now?

“Hey, it’s okay.” Vijay gestured to Malcolm’s neck. “I don’t care about that.”

“I do.”

“Your dad’s The Surgeon.” Vijay looked up at him. “He did that, right?”

Malcolm nodded, letting his hand fall. He couldn’t stand there with his hands around his own throat if Vijay planned to stay on the couch. He sat next to Vijay. “I was his last victim.” He grimaced. He hated how horrible his voice sounded. Dr. Yates, his speech therapist, said his voice would get stronger if he practiced more but it wasn’t his voice anymore. It was ugly, like a rusted gate. 

“Sucks. You’d think the idiots here would feel bad for you, not tease you.”

“I am my father’s son,” he whispered.

“Bull crap. No, we aren’t. We’re us.”

Malcolm traced his scar again. “I haven’t been me since I was ten.”

“Well I think you’re cool.” Vijay pressed a finger against Malcolm’s neck. “This is proof you’re bad ass.”

Malcolm flinched away from the touch but he grinned at the swear word. Jackie had told him that often when his mother was out of ear shot. Mother didn’t approve of cussing. 

“If it hurts to talk, use your computer. If they laugh at you for it and I know they do because I’ve already heard them. They were quick to tell me after lunch today who your daddy is.” Vijay shrugged. “I don’t care about that. We’re going to be great friends. I just know it. Anyhow if they laugh at you for using your computer to talk, you whisper it to me and I’ll scream it out there for you.”

Malcolm’s lip wobbled and he forced the emotions back. He managed a smile and croaked out, “Thank you.”

“Any maybe you can teach me to sign. You asked about it so I know you can.”

Malcolm nodded enthusiastically. “I can. It’s easy!

“Great. So, I can’t sleep and the kids said you _don’t_ sleep….”

“I sleep but I have night terrors.” 

“Okay, how about we ignore light’s out and watch a movie?” Vijay pointed to the DVD player.

Malcolm grinned. He was going to like this kid. “Sure.”

He’d never been much of a rule breaker but Vijay made it sound reasonable. Malcolm picked a movie and Vijay turned out the lights in case one of the teachers who lived in the dorm saw they were ignoring the Lights Out rule for this hour of the night. The boys settled down to watch _Ghostbusters_ , one of Gil’s favorites that Malcolm enjoyed. Somehow tonight, it felt less like winter was coming. Vijay had brought the sun with him and Malcolm couldn’t help but feel warmed by it.


End file.
